Metroid Prime Remastered Accolades Trailer March 4, 2023
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In 2003, I purchased my very first dedicated game console since the original NES. As a PC gamer, I wanted to pick a console I felt had the most unique games I would not be able to play on the PC. That console was the Nintendo GameCube and the first game I got for it was Metroid Prime.
This was a first person adventure game with tight controls and a fully explorable immersive environment, but more than that it showed me that I had been missing out on games outside of the PC. Now, Metroid Prime has been remastered for the Nintendo Switch, and the reviews of it have been nothing short of glorious.
Metroid Prime Remastered is out now for the Nintendo Switch
Pokémon Presents – 2/27/2023 February 27, 2023
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Happy Pokémon Day! Twenty-six years ago, the very first Pokémon games were released in Japan for the Game Boy. All these years later, Pokémon remains one of the biggest media franchises in the world. To celebrate the anniversary, the guys at The Pokémon Company have scheduled this presentation. Hopefully we’ll get to see some of the new games! Take it away!
All games shown here are coming to various platforms including the Nintendo Switch.
Sony State of Play – Feb 2023 February 23, 2023
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Sony has just revealed the first State of Play of the year, where we’re going to get some highlights of upcoming games for the PlayStation platform. Fingers crossed we’ll be seeing some games I’ll be looking forward to that we’re promised for later this year.
All games shown are coming to the PlayStation 4, PS5, or PSVR 2.
iOS 16.3.1 Released February 13, 2023
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Apple has just released an important update for all their devices tonight including Apple TV, Watch and Mac computers. The new update, which is referred to as 16.3.1 on the iPhone and iPad, includes important bug fixes and security patches.
Depending on your device, the update weighs in between 150-550MB.
Memories of Maniac – How Premium Cable Worked Before Cable Boxes February 6, 2023
Posted by Maniac in Mind of Maniac, Site Videos.add a comment
My wife and I have been enjoying watching classic wrestling events over the past few weeks. Back in the day, at least one would be broadcasted as a paid premium live event. But how exactly did premium cable work in the days before digital cable boxes were adopted by the mainstream? We had always assumed people just always knew, then we realized that this was over twenty years ago.
Welcome back to Memories of Maniac, where we discuss our memories from back in the day. Today, we’re going to talk about what went into watching a premium pay-per-view was like back in the day!
PLEASE: Stop Putting Coffee Tables in Your Living Rooms, Gamers Need The Space February 4, 2023
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I grew up at a time when a furnished family room would include several essential components. This was typically the room which included the largest television in the house so everything in it revolved around the TV. Because of that, it would be typical to find a big couch (or sectional) and several bookshelves for print, music or movie storage flanking the opposite walls. Most people take for granted that while the TV would be the focus of the room, it would not be the center of it. If you look at the majority of home photos of people in their living rooms over the past fifty years, you’ll likely find a giant unused table somewhere between their couch and their television. This giant object was the coffee table, and I honestly can’t remember living in a home that didn’t have one.
For a while, things were good, as the coffee table could provide benefits for a home television room. The coffee table allowed a communal location for people to leave their beverages while sitting on their couches, as well as a communal resting place for things like the remote control or a magazine. In the days before on screen guides, television viewers relied on the weekly newspaper or TV Guide magazine to get the times for upcoming programming, so having a place to put that information was useful. Later on as this became less essential, it became trendy for people to decorate their coffee tables with interesting hardcover art books, which created the sub genre of art book many to this day call the Coffee Table Book.
However, things were not always good with the coffee table. Having an enormous THING in the middle of open space can cut down on the amount of useable space in the room, preventing more people from sitting or standing in it. It could also be a trip hazard, as most coffee tables are only knee-high and someone with low visibility could easily walk into it and injure themselves. In a time when remote controls required a point-to-point IR beam to function, the coffee table would be a common barrier between the television and the couch. Also, the vast majority of them were made of substandard material, as no matter how expensive it was, or how beautiful it looked in the showroom floor, there was no way of knowing if doing something as simple as putting a wet drink on it would destroy it. It is also too low to sit around comfortably, making it pointless to sit around to eat or play games at.
While it had its issues, for the longest time, they were considered minor and the coffee table continued on. In 2007, the Nintendo Wii was released, which was the first mass market gaming console that primarily used a motion-based controller. That meant the Wii required an unobstructed view between the player and the television sensor just to function. Previously, the coffee table’s worst transgression was the remote blocking. Since a Wiimote used very similar technology to what was found in a standard remote, unlike a remote it required precise pointing and direction to work correctly, having an obstruction between the couch and television started to become less practical. Also, games were no longer becoming passive experiences people could play from their couches. The Wiimote was just the first in what became a massive motion control arms race, with some requiring controllers, like the PlayStation Move or Joy-Con, and others like the Kinect, simply requiring unobstructed views between the sensor and the player.
What were the consequences of this motion control arms race? It meant a fundamental change in the structure of how gamers organized their gaming rooms. In the days of wired gaming controllers, it was common for players to sit close to the tv to play their games, as they could only sit as far back as their cables would extend. When wireless game controllers became standard for the PS3 and Xbox 360’s controllers, range was expanded and games could be played anywhere in a room, and obstructions were now meaningless. Following the mass adoption of motion controls came the creation of virtual sport and exercise games, which absolutely necessitated an open space to play. This continues on, as even my Apple Watch and Meta Quest Pro have the ability to track physical activities and can get you to use your body for everything from yoga to dance. Now, with motion games, you not only HAD to sit at a further distance from your television, any physical obstruction between you and the television could prevent your gestures from registering with the game. In the gaming space, this can be the difference between win or lose.
In the past two years we’ve seen a wide adoption of home Virtual Reality (VR) platforms. The first generations of these headsets required a wired connection to your PC or game console, as well as an external sensor for head and controller tracking. I can tell you from experience, playing a game in these conditions required not just a lot more open space around the player, but for the user to be a further than normal distance away from the screen. Otherwise, the tracking sensors would have trouble capturing player movement accurately. Having a VR headset on is tantamount to essentially playing a game blindfolded, and it is very easy for a user to lose track of their real-world position while in an active game. Nowadays, stand-alone VR headsets do exist, and many of them will allow you to set external boundaries upon startup, but you MUST have a reasonable amount of open space around you while you play to have a comfortable gaming experience.
So now that you have a better understanding of the current state of what is required to be a modern day gamer, you can see that space is important, and obstructions can be disastrous. So I ask again, why would someone want to limit both of these options just to have an obsolete piece of furniture, offering functions that can be replicated far more conveniently with other objects, in their way? What purpose do coffee tables honestly serve in the year 2023 other than to fill space? Even their original purposes, a communal space to keep your beverage, are no longer practical, as liquid easily damages most of them, and a simple end table next to the couch can hold your drink and your remote control just as conveniently. Heck, most couches made in the last fifty years have cup holders built in them! (ED NOTE: There are a lot of traditionalists who refuse to buy couches with cup holders out of some obsolete sense of aesthetic. Their opinions on the matter are wrong). Heck, due to its low height, the coffee table is useless for even non-electronic gaming, as most pen and paper or board gamers (who may prefer the name tabletop gamers) I’m aware of prefer to play on kitchen or dining room tables.
In the year 2023 VR and Motion controls are mainstream, and while it may no longer be essential for external sensors to be placed in your gaming space, having a wide open space to play games is now the required standard. This should be the beginning of the end of the coffee table, which only exists in the modern day to take up that essential gaming space. The books and magazines that they were meant to hold can be better stored in bookshelves. The remotes or drinks they were meant to hold can be better placed and more accessible on an end table or built-in armrest. So can we all agree the coffee table needs to go? I promise I won’t come for your floor lamps next.
THEATRHYTHEM: Final Bar Line Demo Released February 1, 2023
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After that disappointing last piece of news, I wanted to share some good news with all of you. I’ve been a huge fan of the THEATRHYTHEM games since they launched on the 3DS so many years ago, and was awash with glee to discover that a new game would be coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation platforms. Today, they’ve confirmed a demo of the game is now available as a free download on your platform of choice.
I was able to snag the demo off the Nintendo eShop and I can confirm its a ton of fun! It includes thirty songs including tracks from Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VII. Square Enix does promise that progress from the demo will carry over the full version of the game.
THEATRHYTHEM: Final Bar Line is coming to the PS4 and Nintendo Switch February 16th, 2023.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Delayed February 1, 2023
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Just wanted to give you guys the bad news personally. Respawn Entertainment has confirmed there will be a delay of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the highly-anticipated sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is coming April 28th, 2023 to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC.
Console War VII (Part 2) January 31, 2023
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Welcome back to the Console War where we are quickly headed into the present. As we start this story, Microsoft had announced their next console and Google’s Stadia was essentially dead on arrival. Pokemania’s second wave had started to cool, but the Switch platform was still going strong. Even the Switch Lite had fantastic ongoing sales, as the lower price point was a big incentive for players who had no interest in owning a modern HDTV. What was going to happen next? Sony was about to announce their next console, the PlayStation 5.
In due time, Sony announced their next console would be the PlayStation 5. The first talk about it was mostly technical details, and some of it focused on 3D special audio capabilities. Eventually, two PS5 consoles were revealed, and the only difference between them was that one would include a disc drive and the other would not. Otherwise they’d still be able to play the same games at exactly the same visual standard and performance.
Like the Xbox Series could support Xbox One titles, Sony announced users would be able to play PS4 games on the PS5 through backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, unless the user was engaging in backwards compatibility, PS4 accessories would not work on the PS5 with the exception of the PlayStation VR. However, the PS5’s camera was incompatible with the PSVR, so VR owners would need to obtain an adapter to get their old PS4’s camera working on the PS5. This adapter could be gotten for free on Sony’s website and would be sent out if a user provided Sony Support their PSVR’s serial number.
When Microsoft announced they would be releasing games for both the Xbox One and Xbox Series moving forward, Sony did as well. Major titles including Spider-Man: Miles Morales would get released on both the PS4 and PS5. When Microsoft announced any Xbox cross platform game would only need to ship on a single game package, Sony refused to go this route. Instead of releasing multiplatform games in a single package or offering one-purchase-both-platform digital sales for PS4 and PS5 games, Sony would continue to publish separate PS4 and PS5 disc packages to retail and charge a premium upgrade fee for several titles that shipped on both consoles. PS4 games would typically play on a PS5 using backwards compatibility, but PS5 discs would not work on the PS4. Some PS4 games (such as Control: Ultimate Edition) would offer the ability to play the PS5 native version of the game natively, but it wasn’t always certain if your game would actually launch as a PS4 or PS5 game even if you inserted a PS5 disc into your PS5. Also, saves from PS4 games would not be compatible with their PS5 version, and developers would need to create a conversion tool inside their PS4 games if they wished their users to carry over their progress to the PS5.
Despite these issues, expectations were high for the PS5. As the PS4 was declared the winner of the previous generation of the console war, Sony was walking into the PS5’s generation as the clear frontrunner. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles launched in Fall 2020, but even if you were a hardcore gamer it would be difficult for you to even know it. As I mentioned before, most major titles for the new consoles would have previous generation releases. Unlike the PS4/Xbox One generation that completely cut new releases for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on day one of the PS4/Xbox One launches, games are still coming to the older Sony and MS platforms to this day. Sadly, multi-generational releases weren’t the only reason most people didn’t realize the new consoles were out and I think now is the time for us to address the elephant in the room.
Most people didn’t realize the Xbox Series X or the PS5 released was because you couldn’t find any of them in any store for years after they officially released. In 2020, one of the worst pandemics humanity had ever seen was running wild, forcing most people to stay home. Since the most common activity for people to do while staying home was to play video games, for several months most people did exactly that. Knowing this, several “opportunistic” individuals focused on buying up as much of the stock of game consoles as they could. I believe their intention was to hoard their purchases with the intention to resell at exorbitant price increases. Since there was no difference in the minds of most people, ALL game consoles, be it a Nintendo Switch, a PlayStation or an Xbox, would be bought up almost as soon as they made it to retail for the purpose of a quick resell.
For two years, new consoles were nearly impossible to find at retail. This was a major problem for gamers interested in upgrading their equipment, or people with existing consoles that failed on them and needed to be replaced. This also makes it difficult to keep track of the console war’s pacing, as due to the resale market, it was literally meaningless to track sales during this time. Since none could be found on shelves, all a sales figure would tell you was how many consoles were MADE as of the time it was recorded.
At the height of this demand for new consoles, Nintendo made the announcement they would release a new Switch revision, a Switch with an OLED screen. This new Switch was capable of playing all existing Switch games on a beautiful OLED screen. However, other than including a built-in Ethernet port, everything else about the OLED Switch was the same as the original model and it still output in a 1080p while docked. Gamers everywhere had been clamoring for Nintendo to launch a Nintendo Switch capable of outputting in native 4K resolution and the Switch OLED just could not do that. However, the new screen was absolutely beautiful and the influx of new stock of consoles helped Nintendo have product on retail shelves in time for the Holidays.
Two years into the console war, the resale market would start to crater, and the new generation of consoles could finally be found on retail shelves for people to purchase. Not including Nintendo Switch, the first console to eventually be able to be found on the shelves of normal retailers was the Xbox Series X, several months later gamers could find PS5s. At the same time PS5s began showing up on retail shelves, Sony released several incredible PS5 exclusives, including God of War: Ragnarok and a remaster of the PS3 masterpiece The Last of Us. Sales for the PS5 and the new games coming for the platform pushed it ahead for this generation.
So why was the PS5 outselling the Xbox once again? It came down to the games. Most of the major games coming to the Xbox platform haven’t generated much interest, especially with Microsoft’s major focus on microtransaction-filled multiplayer arena titles. Halo: Infinite, a major poster child for the Xbox Series launch, was delayed several months past the console’s launch. When it eventually did release, it was a disappointment. Sony, on the other hand has been continuing their tradition of producing epic single-player adventures with a major focus on plot and story.
Why did Sony have the best exclusives? After getting burned badly in the initial launch period of the Xbox One, most third-party publishers ceased doing exclusive games for Microsoft. They knew Microsoft’s market share would not allow them to generate enough sales to warrant an exclusive game, regardless of how much Microsoft offered them up front. Microsoft’s only answer to solve the problem of all these companies refusing to produce exclusive games for them was to just outright buy their companies. Microsoft has purchased not just several independent game developers like Double Fine, they also bought several major publishers including Bethesda and as of this writing they’re trying to get approval to purchase Activision. However, while that may be a winning strategy for them in the long term, in the short term it hasn’t been working out.
Microsoft also devoted itself to making all of its major first-party releases multiplaform. That meant you didn’t need to play Halo: Infinite on the Xbox Series X or S, you could play it on the Xbox One or PC. While this was very consumer-friendly, it meant major titles were left unoptimized for the individual platforms. People who did play the game on the Series X, myself included, were disappointed with its graphics and performance on what was supposedly Microsoft’s high-end console. Meanwhile, Sony’s games took full advantage of the hardware capabilities of the PS5.
At the end of 2022, Google announced they would be shutting down the Stadia service. It turned out the expectations of literally every gamer aware of their history had come to pass, and Google realized they weren’t generating enough income with their individual game sales to justify continuing to operate the expensive service. With the shutdown, gamers who made Stadia purchases would be completely locked out of their games. To relieve the concerns (or possibly to avoid lawsuits) Google announced they would refund ALL Stadia hardware and software purchases made during the platform’s lifespan. They would not, however, refund gamers who paid for the monthly premium Stadia service. Gamers with existing Stadia hardware could continue to use their Chromecast Ultras without Stadia functionality (something I can attest most people were doing already) and Stadia Controllers worked fine on conventional PC games. As a last gesture to generate goodwill, Google released a hardware update for the controllers to enable wireless Bluetooth capabilities, but they also worked fine with their provided USB cable.
As we move into 2023, both Sony and Nintendo could argue their way into the frontrunner positions, and Microsoft was not counting themselves out of the game just yet. Stadia is dead, and will live on as a memory of failure in nearly every way conceivable. Sony has recently revealed their next generation PSVR, that they’re calling the PSVR2. Who’s to say what will happen next?
Dragon’s Lair iiRcade Gold Close Up January 30, 2023
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We’ve been interested in the game Dragon’s Lair for at least a decade. It featured graphics by the legendary animator Don Bluth and gameplay that was revolutionary for its time. In fact, long time fans of the site might remember Maniac promised a few years ago to produce a video where he attempted to beat the original arcade game on just one credit. Due to unfortunate technical issues, that could not happen. That’s when we picked up this, the iiRcade Gold, and it is loaded up with a bunch of classic arcade titles including Dragon’s Lair. Let’s take a closer look under the hood.
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